The Iliad by A L Alger

The Iliad by A L Alger

If a single lens can form an image, why does our camera have several elements? A curious child, Rudolf Kingslake inquired of his father the answer to this question nearly one hundred years ago, foreshadowing his remarkablecareer in optics and his future influence on a newly formed branch of science. Born in 1903, at the beginning of the era of technological progress, Kinglake graduated from the Imperial College in London and was offered a positionon the original faculty of what came to be known as the renowned University of Rochester Institute of Optics. Martin Scott details the life of the beloved professor who maintained simultaneous careers in academia and industry as the director of Optical Design for Kodak. Filled with personal reminisces and anecdotes from friends, family and colleagues, Rudolf Kingslake: A Life in Optics encompasses the breadth and vivacity of the pioneer and his astounding life. Martin L. Scott is former Director of Scientific Imaging at the Eastman Kodak Company, and built the Kingslake Archives online register for the Rush Rhees Library's Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester.

Homer was probably born around 725BC on the Coast of Asia Minor, now the coast of Turkey, but then really a part of Greece. Homer was the first Greek writer whose work survives. He was one of a long line of bards, or poets, who worked in the oral tradition. Homer and other bards of the time could recite, or chant, long epic poems. Both works attributed to Homer - the Iliad and the Odyssey - are over ten thousand lines long in the original. Homer must have had an amazing memory but was helped by the formulaic poetry style of the time.

In the Iliad Homer sang of death and glory, of a few days in the struggle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Mortal men played out their fate under the gaze of the gods. The Odyssey is the original collection of tall traveller's tales. Odysseus, on his way home from the Trojan War, encounters all kinds of marvels from one-eyed giants to witches and beautiful temptresses. His adventures are many and memorable before he gets back to Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope. We can never be certain that both these stories belonged to Homer. In fact 'Homer' may not be a real name but a kind of nickname meaning perhaps 'the hostage' or 'the blind one'. Whatever the truth of their origin, the two stories, developed around three thousand years ago, may well still be read in three thousand years' time.

Robert Fagles (1933-2008) was Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He was the recipient of the 1997 PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His translations include Sophocles's Three Theban Plays, Aeschylus's Oresteia (nominated for a National Book Award), Homer's Iliad (winner of the 1991 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award by The Academy of American Poets), Homer's Odyssey, and Virgil's Aeneid.

Bernard Knox (1914-2010) was Director Emeritus of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. He taught at Yale University for many years. Among his numerous honors are awards from the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His works include The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy, Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time and Essays Ancient and Modern (awarded the 1989 PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780486408835
ISBN 10	0486408833
Title	The Iliad
Author	A L Alger
Series	Thrift Editions
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Dover Publications Inc.
Year published	2000-02-01
Number of pages	320
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable